More on being lazy and smart and being a fair but not extreme success

[60Vauban]

For me I broke the cycle when I lived abroad because every day was hard, every little challenge in the language was me pushing myself. I was really alive during this time and when I came back to the US everything was easy again. No more 4 hour lectures trying to simultaneously translate the language and the ideas into something I retained.
I've spent my years since trying to get back to that place of constant challenge. I too did grad work at Pitt expecting school to be the push but it wasn't, and my job was for a while, but I can do that now too in 1/5 of the time it takes everyone else.